Add unpaid dividend details to reports: BSEC to listed firms

The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) has made unclaimed dividend details available in the financial reports mandatory for the listed firms.

The stock market regulator wrote to the managing directors of all listed companies, issuers, mutual fund managers, the Dhaka Stock Exchange, and Chittagong Stock Exchange and other relevant organisations to take necessary measures on the issue.

“The issuer will have to disclose the summary of unpaid or unclaimed dividend in the quarterly financial statement and annual financial statement as a separate line item ‘Unclaimed Dividend Account’,” said the BSEC in a notice on Thursday.

It also said the issuer will maintain detailed information of the unclaimed dividend as per BO account number-wise or name-wise or folio number-wise of the shareholder or unit holder.

The BSEC had approved the 11-member Capital Market Stabilisation Fund (CMSF)’s first board of governors led by Nojibur Rahman, the former principal secretary to the prime minister, on July 7—a week after it framed the rules in the official gazette.

The amount of the dividends which remained undistributed or unsettled for a long period from the date of declaration has been estimated at over Tk 21,000 crore.

As per the rules, the fund must be operated by maintaining a bank account with any scheduled bank and beneficiary owner’s account in the name of the stabilisation fund.

Any amount of cash or stock dividend that remained unpaid or unclaimed or unsettled, including accrued interest income thereon, within three years from the date of declaration or approval must be transferred to the fund.

Any cash in the clients’ ledger under the consolidated customer account and any securities left in the BO account remaining unclaimed for more than three years must also be transferred by the stockbroker and portfolio managers to the fund.

The BSEC had earlier directed the listed companies to deposit undistributed dividends by July 30 this year to the designated banks.

The Bangladesh Association of Publicly Listed Companies (BAPLC), later, sought more time up to transfer the amounts held against unclaimed/undistributed/unsettled dividends to the Capital Market Stabilisation Fund.

Some listed companies started to transfer the unclaimed dividends and non-refunded IPO subscription funds to the stabilisation fund.

According to BSEC data, more than 100 companies wrote to their shareholders to claim the dividends by August 29, 2021, as they have to transfer the fund to the stabilisation fund by August 30.